IAS 150: Poverty, Technology and Development

Abstract: What do unprecedented technological changes mean for poverty and development–in developing regions such as Africa and developed countries such the United States? This course explores this policy question, engaging students on the potential and limits of technology in global development impacts, poverty action as well as impact evaluations.

Summary: This seminar course introduces students to the emerging field of global poverty, technology and development. The course will contextualize the ongoing impacts of technology on economies, polities, societies, and cultures in Africa and the developing world–questions of increasing policy concern. Scholars and policy makers are also realizing that unprecedented technological innovations are redefining what poverty and development does, should and can mean in the United States and other developed countries. The course is concerned with how technology is redefining poverty and development within and across developed-developing realities, with implications on poverty and development as policy targets and experiences.

This course is multidisciplinary and draws on a formidable literature across economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, history, and computer science and engineering.

Fall 2015 Global Poverty and Practice Core Course

GPP 105: The Ethics, Methods and Pragmatics of Global Practice

Summary: This seminar course introduces students to the field of global poverty and practice. The course will contextualize the ethical dilemmas that student volunteers, beneficiaries, organizations and agencies face as actors engaged in poverty action; comprehensively empower you with rigorous methods commonly used in the social, economic, political and behavioral sciences, and an understanding of the complex philosophy of pragmatism. This course is limited to Global Poverty and Practice minors and an arranged Practice Experience is required to take this course.